SDC Keynote Speakers

DJ Koh

PresidentMobile Communications BusinessSamsung Electronics

DongJin (DJ) Koh is President of the Mobile Communication Business at Samsung Electronics. Mr. Koh is responsible for driving every aspect of Samsung’s global mobile business forward, from smartphones and smart wearables to emerging mobile services.

Before he was named President in December 2015, Mr. Koh served as the Executive Vice President and Head of the Mobile R&D Office within Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business. He played a critical role in the launch of a variety of mobile devices and services, including the Galaxy S8 and S8+, Galaxy S7/S7 edge, Galaxy S6/S6 edge, Galaxy Note5, Gear S2, Samsung Pay and Samsung Knox.

Since joining the company in 1984, Mr. Koh has become widely respected for his collaborative style and teamwork-focused approach. Mr. Koh spent a decade in Human Resources, where he elevated company efforts to increase employee engagement and operational excellence throughout the organization. Thanks to his approachable style, Mr. Koh quickly became regarded as a leader whose work could span technologies and businesses to transform Samsung’s product offerings.

As the Head of the Technology Strategy Team from 2007 to 2015, he created strategic alliances with partner companies to help bring innovative technologies to market. Under his leadership from 2006 to 2007, the North America Product Planning Group established a strong foothold in the North American market by developing innovative mobile devices for carriers. Mr. Koh was also responsible for bringing key technical innovations to modem and software technology when he was Head of the Samsung R&D Institute in the U.K.

He graduated from Sungkyungkwan University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Industrial Engineering in 1984 and earned a Master of Science degree in Technology Policy from University of Sussex in 1993.

Injong Rhee

Injong Rhee is a businessman, engineer, researcher and teacher. He is currently CTO, head of engineering – in charge of all software and services globally at Samsung mobile. He is frequently recognized for transforming the company into a significant player in software industry. He was most recently recognized as “the invisible hand of a great designer” behind Samsung Galaxy smartphone software and its user experience design that made “Samsung’s software caught-up to its hardware”.

As CTO, Injong is responsible for all aspects of software of all products of Samsung mobile including UX, Product Management, Development, Support and Updates. His most recent accomplishment is the software powering the flagship smartphones such as Galaxy S8 and Note 8, Gear smart watches and IoT services. During his six years with Samsung he spearheaded several signature software service businesses from incubation to full blown businesses; most notably Samsung Knox, Samsung Pay and Bixby. Knox is Samsung’s fortified version of Android and a companion suite of enterprise management capabilities. Under his leadership Knox has grown from zero to over multibillion dollar business and is on-track to double again this year. Samsung Pay is the most commonly used mobile payment solution rivaling Apple Pay and Android Pay. It has been launched in 17 different markets around the globe. Bixby is an AI assistant integrated into the interfaces of all Samsung products including smartphones, smart TVs, consumer electronics and IoT devices. It is often praised for its ability for detailed device control. Injong continues on his mission to transform Samsung into a software and services powerhouse.

Prior to joining Samsung, Injong was a professor of computer science at North Carolina State University for 14 years. He is the celebrated inventor of BIC and CUBIC – default TCP congestion-control algorithms used in every Linux server and Android phone in the world. He is a two-time winner of the prestigious IEEE William Bennett Award for his work in computer networks (2013, 2016). He has published over 100 journal and conference papers in the areas of distributed computing, computer networks and mobile computing. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Eui Suk Chung

Eui Suk is a passionate technologist dedicated to create the best user experiences from advanced technologies.

As the EVP and Head of Service Intelligence, Eui Suk is responsible for the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research and development for Bixby.

In his 15 years at Samsung, Eui Suk has led innovation in the domains of Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality, as well as provide leadership through Samsung’s successful smartphone OS evolution from Palm OS, Windows Phone, to Android.

Prior to joining Samsung, Eui Suk held leadership roles at Ericsson and the W3C. He has a M.Sc. in Computer Sciences from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Marc Mathieu

Chief Marketing OfficerSamsung Electronics

As CMO, Marc leads U.S.-based marketing across all lines of the company’s business including home entertainment, home appliances, and telecommunications. He also leads the Global Marketing Center of Excellence, designed as an incubator for marketing innovation and excellence across the company. Marc is a storied marketing veteran known for developing talent, digital innovation, and driving big ideas across the business.

Prior to joining Samsung Marc served as the senior vice president of global marketing at Unilever where he launched the “Crafting Brands for Life” campaign and drove the company’s global marketing strategy. Marc also served as senior vice president of global brand marketing at Coca-Cola, where he is credited with branding Coke’s turnaround with the “Open Happiness” strategy and the “Coke Side of Life” global campaign.

Marc is a marketing maverick in today’s digital world, specializing on building brands with purpose and a self-proclaimed data enthusiast. He has a passion for theater and sits on the Board of Directors for the Almeida Theatre and Punchdrunk. Citizen of the world, Marc was born and raised in France and has variously lived across Asia, Europe and America. He now divides his time between London and Los Angeles.

Yoon C. Lee

Senior Vice PresidentHead of Content and ServicesHead of the Product Innovation Team
Samsung Electronics

Yoon C. Lee is Senior Vice President, Head of the Product Innovation Team (PIT) and Head of Content and Services at Samsung Electronics America. He oversees the creation of consumer insight-based innovative concepts for strategic mid-term products across all product categories. He also oversees the Content & Services teams, which create software products for devices including Virtual Reality, Samsung Family Hub refrigerator and other emerging platforms.

Previously, Yoon was VP of Insight Concept & Portfolio at Samsung Electronics in South Korea, leading Samsung Home Appliance’s midterm products and portfolio development. Yoon earned his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Gilles BianRosa

Longtime internet and digital media entrepreneur, Gilles BianRosa, is SVP and Chief Product Officer for Samsung’s Visual Display Content & Services group. He oversees the product portfolio for Samsung Smart TVs as well as innovations for the connected home. Prior to Samsung, BianRosa was at TiVo (formerly known as Rovi), which acquired his start-up, Fan TV, in 2014. Fan TV was widely recognized as the first and leading entertainment discovery app for the connected world. Fan TV received a CES Best of Show award, and has been praised by WSJ, NYT, CNBC, and many other media outlets. Before Fan TV, Gilles was the CEO of Vuze (formerly known as Azureus).

Pranav Mistry

Senior Vice President of ResearchSamsung Electronics

Pranav Mistry is a scientist and inventor. In his role as the Senior Vice President of Research, Pranav leads Innovation and New Product Categories at Samsung. Pranav’s contribution to the fields such as Augmented Reality, Wearable Computing, Computer Vision and Machine Learning puts him in the elite list of pioneers and inventors that shape the future of digital world.

For his contribution to the advancement of digital computing technologies, Pranav has been honored by many prestigious international awards. He was awarded the 2009 ‘Inventor of the Year’ Award by Popular Science. He was also named to the MIT TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2010, he was named to Creativity 50 – the list of top 50 creative people in world. Mistry has been listed as one of the 15 Asian Scientists to Watch by Asian Scientist Magazine. Recently, GQ India listed Pranav as one of the most powerful Digital Indians and was named among the 37 Indians of Tomorrow by India Today. Mistry has been called “one of ten, best inventors in the world right now” by Chris Anderson. World Economic Forum honored Mistry as one of the Young Global Leader 2013.

James Stansberry

Senior Vice President and General Manager of ARTIK™ IoTSamsung Electronics

James Stansberry is Senior Vice President and Global GM of ARTIK IoT Business, a secure end-to-end, IoT platform that transforms the process of building, launching, and managing IoT products.

Mr. Stansberry joined Samsung from Silicon Laboratories where he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Silicon Labs’ Internet of Things (IoT) products, as well as Vice President and General Manager of Silicon Labs’ Broadcast products. Under Mr. Stansberry’s leadership in Broadcast, Silicon Labs became the No. 1 supplier of silicon tuners to the global TV market.

Prior to Silicon Labs, Mr. Stansberry served in a variety of management roles in corporate strategy, R&D and semiconductor products at Sony Corporation. Previously, he held business management and engineering positions with Motorola’s semiconductor product sector in several product groups focusing on the computing, consumer and game console markets.

Mr. Stansberry holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from National Technological University in mixed-signal communication ICs.

Dag Kittlaus

Vice PresidentSamsung Electronics / CEO of Viv Labs

Dag Kittlaus was the founder and CEO of Viv Labs which was acquired by Samsung in 2016. Prior to that Dag was the founder and CEO of Siri which was acquired by Apple in 2010. Dag ran Siri and speech recognition for two years at Apple prior to starting his next company, Viv. Prior to that Dag was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Stanford Research Institute as well as a General Manager of the advanced Smartphone group at Motorola.

Dag has been a technology visionary in the mobile and artificial intelligence space throughout his career and his innovations are currently in use by hundreds of millions of users.

Robert Parker

Chief Technology OfficerSmartThings

Robert Parker is the CTO of SmartThings, where he has led the company’s product and engineering teams for the past 1.5 years. Prior to joining SmartThings, Robert served as the Director of Engineering at Amazon, spending five years working on the company’s top projects, including: Alexa, Fire TV and Prime Music. Prior to Amazon, Parker spent 18 years as a General Manager at Microsoft. Robert is also an industry awarded and recognized technical leader in the IoT and tech space, holding more than 20 patents of his own.

Stan Lee

Marvel Comics

Stan Lee, the chief creative force behind the rise of Marvel Comics, brought to life some of the world’s most famous heroes and infamous villains, including Spider-Man, The Hulk, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, The Avengers, Loki, and Dr. Doom. His stories featured heroes and villains that were more psychologically complex than had ever been seen previously, inspiring legions of fans. According to his autobiography, Excelsior, “Lee put the human in the superhuman.” As a producer, writer, editor, publisher, actor, host and executive, and idol to many, Stan ‘the Man’ Lee has left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry having created or co-created 90% of Marvel’s most recognized characters. These creations have spawned books, films, television series, video games, web series, Broadway shows and more, offering a steady stream of box office.

Arianna Huffington

Founder and CEO of Thrive Global

Arianna is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books, including, most recently, Thrive and The Sleep Revolution.

In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet, and in 2012 won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. In August 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a corporate and consumer well-being and productivity platform with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success. Thrive Global provides trainings, seminars, e-courses, coaching and ongoing support based on the latest scientific findings to improve people’s health and increase productivity for both companies and individuals around the world.

She has been named to Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.

She serves on numerous boards, including Uber and The Center for Public Integrity.

Her last two books, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night At A Time, on the science, history and mystery of sleep, both became instant international bestsellers.